Same mastermind behind London bombs: Musharraf

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Pakistan's President says the July 7 London bombings and the
botched attack two weeks later were masterminded by the same
individual.

Pervez Musharraf says it's possible the two groups of bombers
didn't know each other, but the planner had to have been the
same.

"Because the pattern is similar, therefore while the people were
different and maybe the groups didn't know each other, but the
planner must be the same," he tells a documentary series called
The New al-Qaeda, to be shown on BBC TV tonight.

"Certainly those four boys who killed themselves ... were not
experts in handling bombs and handling a complex operation like
timing explosives and all that.

"So I'm sure there must be a brain behind it."

He said that, while some of the terrorists might have picked up
tips in visits to Pakistan in the run-up to the attacks, they had
been in Britain for 20 years and he insisted that was where they
became radicals.

He also said the British Government had been too soft in
tackling extremists, and that he was surprised moves had not been
made earlier to clamp down on radical clerics.

The Hizb ut-Tahrir and Al Muhajiroun organisations - both set to
be proscribed - had both passed edicts that he should be killed,
the President pointed out.

"I have always been against this kind of freedom ... complete
freedom.

"These people are militant so maybe the reaction by any
government they think that it's going to create some kind of a law
and order problem and some kind of people coming out in the streets
with violence and all that because they can be violent also.

"So one tends to not take those bold decisions until something
very bad happens."

"That's the unfortunate reality ... we don't want to disturb the
environment, we don't want to ... but I think prudence demands that
we take tough decisions - foresee what it could lead to."

Asked if he believed the Government had been "too soft" in its
approach to extremist preachers and organisations, he said: "Yes, I
think so, absolutely."

British Prime Minister Tony Blair is due to unveil a raft of new
counter-terrorism measures later this week.